The marathon ho-hums

Distance: 7mi

Miles to go: 1536

OK…  I’m pooped.  Three good solid runs this week left me pretty tired for this morning’s run.  It was a new route for me, which took some of the sting out of it because I had to pay more attention to where I was going.  But I could definitely feel that “leg weary” tiredness.  I guess in some ways it’s a good thing because it was really the only feeling I had.  No other pain or woe.  And I still ran 8:37s so it wasn’t all bad.

I also picked up something very important this morning after the run.  A registration form for a 5K.  This will be my first “race” this year…  I’m so excited!!!  And worried I won’t be anywhere near a time I will be satisfied with.  But I don’t care.  I can’t wait to run with a number pinned on me again!

I had to giggle at my running buddies this morning.  I heard them whining about being tired and eating all the time and long runs and no sleep and and and…  I was there…  I remember that feeling.  The last 6 weeks before your marathon…  The douldrums…  When it seems like you are always running or eating or washing your running clothes.  And you begin to wonder what the hell you are doing…  I gotta tell ya… Of all the things I miss about marathon training, that ain’t one of them.  I hated that feeling.  It was almost depressing.  I recovered my composure and tried to get them fired up by reminding them how far they had come and that they were all going for a BQ and this was the hard work that would make the actual marathon easy.  I don’t know if it worked, but at least they perked up a bit.

Our local marathon is Monday.  It is called the Heart of America marathon and has been going on now for 49 years.  It’s a small, community supported run but it is one of the toughest, non-mountain marathons in the nation.  And most of the hills are in the last half when it is hot and you are already miserable anyway.  Still, a lot of the 250 or so intrepid souls who show up for this event are from out of state and it has a reputation for a marathon that will really challenge you.  I volunteered last year but I think I’m going to just stay out of this year altogether, mostly because I don’t want to get any stupid ideas.  I’m just now feeling good again after breaking myself running my last marathon.  But if things go well for me with running over the next year, this may just be my next marathon…  hmm…

How appropriate…

Distance: 4mi

Miles to go: 1543

I’m recharging my iPod Shuffle which has been my constant companion through the last 6 months.  If you don’t have one… GET ONE.  Mine is filled with extremely agressive, fun, fast music of all sorts.  In short…  You don’t WANT to know what’s in my iPod…  Your brain would squirt right out your ears…

As I’m recharging it I’m listening to the music on it and I’m currently listening to a song that is very appropriate to my current state of running mind.  The band is Puddle of Mudd…  The song is Psycho.  Of course, having worked in psych hospitals for 3 years or so in the past, my analytical side immediately jumps in and says “Nah… You are more Bipolar right now than Psychotic”…  Can you see why I’m not in it anymore?  Those people (that work in the Psych field) are crazy…

Anyway, in the up and down world that is my running life right now (wait… new song… Ludo: Love Me Dead.  Look it up!   It’s HILARIOUS… in a weird… sick sort of way…), today’s traknight run was… umm… down.  No energy.  No power.  No kick… Nothing. 

However, on the manic side of that depressing coin, I don’t think it had anything to do with any of the host of ailments I have been bitching about for the last year.  Nope.  Tonight was simple…

Nutrition.

Never…

Ever…

EVER…

Eat a huge, spicy burrito for lunch 4 hours before you go out and sprint for an hour…

…dumbass…

OK… You can go…

Distance: 6mi

Miles to go: 1547

Don’t you wish that when something good happened in your running life you could always point to “the” thing that caused it?  If for no other reason than to have the satisfaction of knowing why for yourself?

Last Thursday, something happened.  I finished a run that was longer than I probably should have been running, in dismal conditions.  I was tired to the point of feeling drugged and groggy.  It hurt to go up or down stairs.  The only way I could stand up out of my chair was to grunt like my grandpa used to.  In general, more of the same that I have been feeling for the last 8 months.

Then, on Saturday, something changed.  I ran 10 miles with no pain or fatigue.  I wasn’t tired or sore afterwards.  I had energy.  And I ran at an accelerated pace for the distance (about a minute per mile faster than usual).  I wrote it off as anomalous.  Just a happy blip on an otherwise rotten year.  I rested on Sunday and then rode my bike to work on Monday.  Again, with the feeling good thing…  My wife had a busy afternoon and couldn’t meet me halfway home so I had to ride home.  AGAIN… with the feeling good thing…!  I was pooped last night but not that miserable exhaustion I have been feeling.

So this morning I was SURE I would be back to the rotten thing again.  Surely the 25 miles of hilly biking yesterday had done me in… right?  How about a PR on this course by over a minute and a half…?

What the hell is wrong with me?  I’m feeling all… good… and stuff…  That’s just… eww…

I’m so used to just feeling bad after my runs that I’ve kind of gotten used to it.  But, heck… Now I feel like I could go out and run another 5 or 6 miles (I’m not going to… of course… but still).

I’m not complaining.  That would be stupid.  “Never sniff a gift fish” and all that…  But I have been racking my feeble little brain looking for a reason.  My diet hasn’t changed.  My sleep patterns may be MARGINALLY better.  I’m getting to sleep earlier but I’m also waking up earlier so I’m not sure if that’s an improvement or not.  I’m just not sure.  It would just be nice to say that because I did (X) I got better.

Now, granted, my next run or even my next step could lead me right back down the misery trail.  But I don’t think so.  Something IS different this time.  It’s like somebody flipped a switch and said… OK… You can go.  And that’s exactly what I plan on doing…

I never know until I run, so… I’ll just run.

Distance: 10mi

Miles to go: 1553

I had ABSOLUTELY NO intention of running 10 miles today.  I had pretty much convinced myself that I was only going to run 6 or so.  After feeling so bad Thursday after running 7 miles, I thought for sure that I would feel rotten today.  But, as always, that’s why we run.

Two weeks ago I watched two of the ladies that I run with take off into the distance as I labored along and struggled to maintain a 9:30 pace.  Today, I ran with one of them for the entire distance and finished (albeit very tired) at an 8:33 pace.  I felt fantastic up until about mile nine when I started to cramp up a bit.  But I was able to struggle my way in anyway.  I think I just ran out of water.  We went over to a local coffee shop after we finished and I promptly drained the water supply in Columbia by about half before I got my first cup of coffee and, wouldn’t you know, I felt better.

I think this reinforces for me the fact that no matter how I “think” I feel, I just need to go run.  I think I’ve been pre-judging my runs a lot lately based on how I feel when I’m heading to the trailhead.  I just need to relax and run.  I seem to have lost my ability to guage my body so I’m just not going to pay attention to it (within reason, of course).

Puddle Jumping?

Yesterday just trashed me and I’m not sure why.  I was miserably tired, hobbling and sore all day.  Today I feel a bit groggy, but otherwise fine.  I can go up and down stairs without a problem.  I’m really not sure what happened.  I may have run a little faster than I wanted to, but only 10 seconds a mile or so.

I think the only thing different was the weather.  I haven’t run in a deluge like that in a long time.  The water wasn’t just “standing” in puddles.  It was roaring off to the sides, down the gutters and streets and for the first part of the run it was dark so you couldn’t even avoid it.  You just ran through whatever came up.  But there was a lot more side to side motion and jumping (although once your shoes get wet… why bother?)  Anyway, that’s the only thing I can think of that was different.  I guess the only way to test it is to wait for another big rain and then run in it again and see if it poops me out…  Which, around here lately, shouldn’t be long… Like… This afternoon, maybe?

Man in the middle

This is an entry into the Runner’s Lounge Take-It-And- Run Thursday.

I discovered a good side and a bad side to the middle miles since my re-birth as a runner.  The first one is that I love the middle miles!  How weird is that.  But let me explain.  See, I found that, when I was training for the marathon, it took me as many as 4 or 5 miles just to get warmed up and in the groove on a longer run.   On a 15 mile run, miles 6-12 were my “comfortable” miles.  These were the miles when I was warmed up, settled into my pace and in that “groove”.  It felt like I wasn’t even working or breathing hard.  I was just focused, concentrating and tuned in to my body.

…most of the time.

But occasionally the bad side came out.  I discovered the bad side of the middle miles on a much shorter distance, actually.  It was during one of our Traknight sessions.  We were running the dreaded “timed mile” (insert doom and gloom music here).  My first lap was 1:25.  The second lap was 1:27.  The THIRD lap was 1:37…?  And the final lap was 1:24.  I didn’t even notice until I checked my splits.  A very experienced miler that was running with us (he ran a 4:08 mile that day…!) surprised me by telling me that this is actually VERY common.  He said it’s not from a lack of training or conditioning, it is due to inattention.  He said it is easy for you lose focus over longer distances and kind of start to “phone it in”.  In other words, you cruise and let up.

As I started looking at my distance splits a bit closer after that and found that this is exactly what I was doing on my longer runs.  I would warm up and start hitting my pace, but when I got to those middle miles I would ease up.  Not because I couldn’t maintain the pace, but because I had lost focus.  I wasn’t paying attention.  I was thinking about my next gel hit, or the closest potty stop, or mowing the lawn, or what I would do if I won the lotto, etc.  As soon as my brain wandered off, my times sagged.

Now, given that I have the attention span of a goldfish, I knew that this mental part of the game would need some trickery so I started trying to purposefully run negative splits through the middle third of my runs, but only by a second or two.  It got me focused on my pace again and my overall times improved dramatically, but without much more effort.  It was a strange fact but it was true.  The hardest thing for me to do when I was training for the marathon (which still remains true to this day) was to simply maintain focus through the entire run.

Oh… I still think about winning the lotto or getting three wishes from a genie while I’m running…  I just check my splits more between the daydreams.

Of olympians and special people…

Distance: 7mi

Miles to go: 1563

Seven miles in the POURING rain this morning…  What the hell am I thinking?  I’m not TRAINING for anything.  That was totally unnecessary… But MAN it was fun!  It’s obvious to me now that I am sick…  As a running buddy put it, I need to go to RunAnon…

The group I run with, the Columbia Multisport Club, is about as great a group as you will find anywhere, in any sport.  Besides being filled with great athletes, they are good people.  They are kind and considerate and thoughtful, all qualities that I find attractive but that are all to unfortunately rare today.  For example, last week (a run I missed,  sorry Gwenna, we’ll miss you!) they held a special run in honor of one of our members who is moving out of state.  This week (today… in the rain) over 40 of us showed up for a special run.  Christian Cantwell is a US Olympic Shot Putter who won the silver medal in China last week.  He is from Eldon, went to MU and is an assistant coach there now.  To show support for him and let him know we are proud of him, some friends of his at a local eatery bought a big roll of silver ribbon and are asking everyone to sign it.  Our run today, in the pouring rain, was to that diner so that we could all sign the ribbon for him.  I just think that kind of stuff is cool.  Will it mean anything to Christian Cantwell?  I hope so.  We are proud of him.  He is just another example of the fantastic athletes here in Columbia.  Oh, and, Christian?  Sorry we got your ribbon soggy.  It was kinda raining buckets when we got there…

Just run…

Distance: 3mi

Miles to go: 1570

Didn’t get a chance to run while I was down south in West Plains so I’m short a day this week.  I suppose I could have but I didn’t.  No excuses.

Tonight was Traknight and it was a bit different.  We went out for (X) minutes and then stopped and turned around and came back.  The goal was to try to come back and hit the line in the exact same time.  Sounds easy but it’s not.  Great for working on pace though.  We did 2:30, 2:00, 1:30, and 1:00 out and backs at 5K pace, with the last one just being all out as fast as you felt you could go (and make it back…!).  I pushed it and tried to hit my quarters for the first two in 1:35 or less and hit the 1:30 at exactly a quarter mile.  After that, the 1:00 was mostly trying not to pass out…

As I look at the next month, I don’t have a ton of stuff on my schedule as I prepare for conference season.  I am going to try to edge up my mileage just a bit over the next month.  Not much, maybe 5 miles a week or so.  I don’t really know why, I just want to.  I still am not “training” for anything, which kind of wigs people out for some reason.  Isn’t it OK to run for fun and fitness anymore or do we HAVE to be training for a race?  Meh… No matter.  I just giggle and trot on.  I’m going to give myself the rest of the year to just run.  Maybe I’ll run a race… maybe not.  Right now I just wanna run.

Morning quicky

Distance: 6mi

Miles to go: 1573

Just a quicky about today’s run.  I don’t brag much about my runs, but today… I brag.  Not about my time or how many people I passed.  Nope, today I brag because it was just about perfect this morning.  Since the weather here has been so bad for so long, when it’s good, I feel the need to rub it in…

In the middle of August, in the middle of America, on a Saturday morning, it was sunny, sixty degrees, no wind and low humidity.

The group was running 10 miles this morning, but since I’m on my “back off your milage and relax” kick, I decided to only run 6.  I felt really good.  No pain, no slowdown, just a smooth, easy run.

I should have thanked her

Distance: 4mi

Miles to go: 1579

Had a long week of travel at work so I took off early this afternoon and went to a favorite short run of mine to give it a go.  I started under threat of a shower that never really manifested itself but did manage to blow a cool wind my way, which, under cover of the trees, was very pleasant.

I took off at a comfortable pace, expecting my ankle (something to do with my achilles) to hurt and the usual grumps to come back but, to my surprise, my various body parts seemed happy with the conditions.  About 1/3 mile into the run I was passed by a younger (20ish?) girl who seemed to be cruising.  I looked inside myself at this point and realized that I was too.

I wasn’t pushing myself.

I wasn’t breathing hard.

In short, I was kinda phoning it in.

In an instant, I picked up the pace.  Dammit, I know my limits and I know when I am pushing it.  The only way for me to get better/stronger/faster (think $6 million dollar man) is to test my limits.  I picked up the pace to see if I could catch her.  She was running about an 8:30 pace and I locked in on her heels after about a mile and stuck with her.  It wasn’t about male vs. female or old vs. young, it was about effort vs. reward.  I could feel my breathing getting heavy, but not labored.  THIS was the right pace.  She seemed irritated and picked up the pace.  I wasn’t trying to piss her off and I really didn’t care if it was a girl, guy, bicycle, dog or shadow that I was running with.  What I was chasing was inside.

After about another half mile I could hear her breathing getting labored as she struggled to maintain her pace.  I’m sure she didn’t want to get passed by an old, fat guy.  I totally understand.  But I was tuned in at this point and didn’t care.  I went around her and continued on.  I got to my turn and headed back, surprised by my own splits (8:02).  I looked up to see her walking, obviously winded, up the trail at me.  We smiled weakly at each other as I passed.

Again, this WASN’T about “her”.  It was about “me” and the realization that, whether it was because I was afraid to hurt myself or I had just gotten lazy/out of shape, I was only putting in minimal effort on my runs.  I can’t really fault myself since running has been such a painful endeavor for the last 6 months, but I don’t want to fall into that habit.  I’m going to mix it up a bit.  Trail runs, group runs, track runs, etc.  I think it might be time for me to start running “different” for a while.  I need to mix it up and do different types of runs.

But…

No matter what type of run I choose, I need to start challenging myself again.  It’s obvious to me over the last week that I have more in me than I have been giving.  It’s time…